Six Feet Under need no introduction, so here is an introduction that is both pointless, overlong, and lacking in brevity. Formed as side project by then Cannibal Corpse singer Chris Barnes and Obituary guitarist Allen West in 1993, Barnes’ sudden departure from his day job in 1995 suddenly propelled Six Feet Under into his primary concern. Eschewing blast beats and the violent, sexual stench of his past lyrics with CC, he embraced a more groove orientated approach to Death Metal and over the last 25 years, 13 albums and a revolving door of band mates, Six Feet Under have established themselves as one of the mainstays of the Death Metal nomenclature.
Six Feet Under have been consistently good to great in the intervening twenty-five years. Carving out a niche in the death metal world, by slowing things down, getting the groove to do the talking whilst resting on a bed of gargled mayhem from Beelzebub’s own spleen in terms of Barnes’ unique vocal style. It can be argued, that Chris Barnes’ was very much the bar setter when it came to Death Metal vocals, gruff, brutal, sandblasted awfulness and with his trademark high pitched ‘Bree’ (seemingly a piss take initially?) has been purloined by the majority of gore metal bands over the last 25 years. With the piggy squeals, Barnes has a lot to answer for. So, with a back catalogue of (mostly) credible and often hugely enjoyable albums, replete with covers of aplenty (SFU’s interpretation of AC/DC ‘T.N.T’ is fun for a few minutes) you would imagine that SFU could just sit back and trot out an album every few years and tour (in non Covid times) safe in the knowledge that their legacy as one of the Death Metal scene greats was assured.
The issue with this method of working is it is contingent of decent new material and the problem with that, is that their new album ‘Nightmares of the Decomposed’, is one of the most lazy, generic, boring, ill conceived, poorly written, and tired sounding albums I have heard for a while. This is as disappointing as it is unexpected, especially considering that opening song ‘Amputator’ comes steaming out the box like a fox caged for five years living on a diet of fishfingers finally released. Its old-fashioned Death Metal that is very reminiscent of Barnes former day job which is no surprise really considering that former bandmate and ex-Cannibal Corpse guitarist Jake Owen, takes on lead song writing duties, upon his return to the band. So far so good, but as you slide into track two ‘Zodiac’, you suddenly realise with a grim, cold, icy shudder that this album is flying into the toilet like a turd born of a three day bender encompassing all of the Wetherspoons pubs in Hull and a diet of Frazzles and pickled eggs.
Chris Barnes sounds utterly banjaxed. It is as if the years of touring and shredding his voice have finally taken their toll. His voice sounds bereft of power, thin, reedy, and ragged. The songs and the vocals in particular, lack any umph and the songs hitherto featured can be best be described as a collection of half assed efforts that trundle along at mid-tempo with occasional flashes of competence during the multiple guitar solos. But even those solos sound like they were copy and pasted onto these tracks after the fact, producing an album that is almost totally devoid of any musical merit and worst of all being guilty of being boring, poorly executed and bland. The band themselves seem as bored as me, as songs turn up, piss about for a while, smoke a spliff, fart in the corner and end of giving up the ghost abruptly halfway through said far and fucking off down the pub.
It’s such a shame that the legacy of what I still consider to be one of the great death and roll protagonists (Entombed and Obituary also) have besmirched their legacy by laying this stinky cable of an album that has very little musical merit and is led by one of death metal’s great vocalist operating well below par. Here is hoping that this is a mere flesh wound, a slight discolouring of their legacy and that they will return, firing on both barrels, with their next album. But given the critical and fan led mauling of their last full-length effort (2017’s Torment’…never has a title been so prescient and sadly apt) you must question the bands longevity and relevance. Whether time affords them that luxury, alongside what I can only imagine will be another multi layered pile-on of bad reviews in the metal press, ‘Nightmares of the Decomposed’ will only serve to antagonise and drive away the few hardcore fans still nailing their colours to the Six Feet Under mast and it certainly won’t encourage any new converts into the fold.
(3/10 Nick Griffiths)
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